


Thrall

by illegible



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 13:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1512350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illegible/pseuds/illegible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You find him everywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thrall

It was a mistake to cheat.

You still ask yourself why he chose you, over and over with all the futility of the ignorant. No. Infantile stupidity, your brain insufficiently developed to comprehend his reasons without being told outright. He will not tell you, it isn’t how he operates. You wonder if it has something to do with the office you work in, the computer you use, the subway you take on the way home, the television programs you watch in your spare time. If you failed to hold the door for the wrong person, if you answered a stranger’s question correctly or incorrectly without even noticing or remembering. It’s a mystery and it’s utterly beyond you.

But faced with a deathtrap he’d probably designed himself, with his voice in your ears and a question lit green on the screen before your eyes, you didn’t have an answer. You knew with absolute certainty that when the counter wound down you would find yourself lit up with a surge of electricity like the hand of God your mortal frame could not encompass. And you would die.

You didn’t want to die. He understands that, he has to, but that doesn’t mean he cares.

So you cut the Gordian Knot, so to speak. That much was within your grasp. You disassembled what you had to, clawed your way to plugs and wires you understood and tore them loose. Then you stood in the darkness with water lapping at your feet, stomach clenched so tight you found yourself nauseous, until a door was opened and a Bat flew inside.

No one will save you now. No one knows.

It started in subtle things, headlines on the news that made your head jerk up over dinner, your pulse trapped in your throat. The phrasing was too perfect, the subjects intimately familiar. Of course he’s still watching, and he’s furious.

How can he not be?

You saw him in graffiti on the buildings on your way home, in advertisements in store windows, in all the questions society asks but expects no one to answer.

He expects you to answer. You can’t.

There are clues everywhere in what he wants you to do for him. You send money to a stranger’s account based on numbers you accumulated over the course of several radio commercials. He knows what stations you listen to, of course.

You deliver cryptic messages to strangers on the street, homeless men and women begging on the sidewalk (a cover, it’s innocuous and no one else suspects), men who administer catcalls as women pass by, shadows lingering in alleyways, businessmen brushing past you in a rush. You always manage to get the right words out, you know in the moment they make eye contact.

And Riddler is a professional, the most elite judge of character. When you are too obvious in passing along information he tells you through his follower’s reactions, all actors unbraiding you for your shortcomings. You hear his voice in their words.

He’ll want help escaping from Arkham soon. Maybe the meaning behind this is penance. Maybe you’re supposed to set him free, and he’ll return the favor.

It’s a guess. There isn’t enough evidence to be sure of his message yet, but you’re desperate. You don’t sleep in case you miss something vital, you don’t eat in case you’ve made a mistake and find poison.

He doesn’t receive nearly enough credit for what he does, you decide. The others, they use technology and chemical tricks.

With the Riddler, it’s personal between your mind and his.

It must be terrible for him, with how few people understand.

You’ll have to apologize to his face.


End file.
